Looking Out for the Good: Salt Lake Valley Habitat for Humanity expands to include Davis County

SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake Valley Habitat for Humanity and Northern Utah Habitat for Humanity have to make way for some new clients.

Approximately 18 months ago, the Habitat for Humanity serving Weber and Davis counties closed, leaving both areas without the affordable housing assistance it offers to ease the growing demand. The Salt Lake Valley Habitat chapter and Northern Utah Habitat for Humanity stepped in, deciding to split the area, absorbing each region into their programming.

The Habitat offices in northern Utah will work with Weber County residents, while Davis County folks will be assisted in Salt Lake City.

“What we didn’t want to see happen was a big gap in coverage,” said Corin Crowe, Salt Lake chapter CEO. “We’ve expanded our services already, but we are hiring more people. We’re also in the process of doing an office expansion right now … to accommodate a larger staff.”

As it stands, the Salt Lake Habitat chapter assists families in Salt Lake, Tooele and Davis counties, but the new addition does not mean the agency is slowing down in any way. A year from now, it hopes to be building homes in Magna, where Crowe said it has property for approximately 30 homes. The organization also hopes to open ReStores — Habitat’s nonprofit home improvement stores and donation centers — in new locations and continue Critical Home Repairs, a program that assists community residents, not only Habitat partners, to make repairs essential to the home.

The agency also hopes to continue to do what it does best — build houses — adding to the 115 homes presently dedicated in Salt Lake and Tooele counties. This year and in the future, Habitat aims to build between 10 to 20 homes a year in both counties. It has built 16 this year. In the next five years, Habitat staff members hope to build 10 houses a year — continuing the organization’s goal of attempting to alleviate the growing request for housing.

“There has been tremendous demand,” Crowe said. “We’re also not the only answer. The thing that fuels the team here, and myself, is the collaboration with all the other people that are giving of themselves, who are there with boots on the ground. When we’re all partnered together, and we braid our services, it makes us so much more impactful.”

Clients in Davis County will still participate in all the Habitat processes necessary to move into a home. They must still complete 225 hours of sweat equity — work on building the house — and attend financial literacy classes offered by the agency. The families receive a 30-year mortgage with 0% interest, and new residents — the secretaries, wait staff, airport baggage handlers and others — can move into a home that is spacious and has room for their children to play.

Crowe knows owning a Habitat home makes a huge financial and social difference for families.

With a stable place to live, he said residents can see their children make friends in the neighborhood; as parents, they can join the PTA; create generational wealth; and also become a part of the neighborhood they can call their own.

With the help of the Salt Lake Valley Habitat for Humanity, Crowe said residents of Davis County will not miss out — they can continue to dream of owning a home.

“I believe in hope, in possibilities,” he said. “I believe in simply making a difference in the lives of people in need. There are people out there that don’t know the services we provide … we will do outreach and become a part of the community.”